A Human Will Haunt
by NewMoonHaunt
Summary: Emily was unhappy with the way her life was going. It looked like her dreams were never coming true. But, on Halloween night, a misunderstanding with a gentlemanly skeleton lands her in Halloween Town. Even when she explains that she's human, the monsters are bent on keeping her there. Will she ever get home, or will she find a way for a human to haunt with monsters on Halloween?
1. Prologue

"No," he said.

A month's worth of planning, several tears worth of studying, and a lifetime of dreaming just tossed aside by one little word.

"No," he said again.

I'd spent so long, tried so hard, and it all just came crashing down. The one thing I felt passionate about, shinned and looked down on by my dad.

"But–" I started

"No," he interrupted.

"Dad–"

"No!"

"Just listen to me!" I shouted. "Dad, it doesn't even need to be a good college. I just need an education to start my career–"

"Emily," my dad interrupted again. "I am not sending you off to college so that you can be a _makeup artist_. It's ridiculous. It's out of the question. I'm not paying for you to go play dress up when you could be pursuing a logical occupation. End. Of. Discussion."

I stood there in silence, fighting back tears, trying desperately not to open my mouth. Because if I opened my mouth, then the dam would break, and I'd be screaming at him uncontrollably, like a toddler throwing a tantrum, and then he'll never let me go. He'd say I was being "too immature". Instead, I hurl insults at him in my mind, imagining what I would say if I was brave enough.

_You said to me, "Find something that you're passionate about." Well, I did, and now you're just going to say no? I've worked hard for this, and I'm good at it. I want to be a makeup artist–why can't you just accept that? Is it not what you want for me? Well, then, what do you want? For me to be a wealthy inventor like you? Well, surprise, Daddy! I don't want to be like you. I don't want to be _anything _like you. You're so obsessed with your job that you never have any time for your family. So obsessed that your wife eventually leaves you, and you just keep on inventing as a sort of therapy, but you're not focused on the _real _problem. The real problem is that you're drifting farther and farther away from your daughter–me, the only family that you have left–, and she barely knows you anymore. I barely know you._

_ You don't know me, dad._

But I didn't say that. How could I say that without breaking into tears halfway through? Even thinking that made my eyes sting even more and a single tear slip down my cheek. I hear my dad sigh, but I can't see it because my eyes are clouded with tears. Even so, I can tell from the sigh that his face is bored, impatient, and exasperated.

I ran upstairs, quickly, but not quick enough, into my room, and shut the door. And I break. The dam breaks. The entire contents of the Niagara Falls poured out of my eyes, down my face, and I drown. Sobbing. Wailing. Bawling. Crying. For my crushed dreams, of course, but for something else, too. Something deeper.

I was sobbing, wailing, bawling, and crying because I didn't know my dad, the only. And he didn't know me. My dad, the only family I had left, was a stranger to me.

And if you don't know someone, if they're a complete stranger to you, how can you possibly love them?

* * *

**AN: **I apologize in advance for the snail-like speed that I'll probably be updating. I'll try to update whenever I finish a chapter, but I'm a slow writer, so I don't know when that'll be. Anywhere from three days to two months. Like I said, I'm sorry.

This is my first fanfic, so please, R&R, constructive criticism always welcome!

BTW, this is just the prologue, the chapters will probably be longer. Probably.


	2. 1 Haunt on Halloween

**Chapter 1**

My life was unsatisfactory.

All my friends went off to college with promises to keep in touch. Those promises were broken.

My father and I had minimum interaction.

I got a job working at our town's theatre as a makeup artist. It was fun, but not the job I wanted.

I kept trying to find schools with affordable degrees in cosmetology, but even the cheapest schools I could find was too expensive for me to pay without my father's help.

After several weeks of working at the theatre, I got enough money to rent my own place. It was tiny and disgusting, full of termites and rats. It was very different than the giant mansion that my dad had built, the home I had grown up in. Still, it was better than living in the same house with him.

September sucked. I was alone. I had no hopes of ever getting somewhere other than where I was now, working at a small-town theatre and living in a horrible apartment. All my neighbors were grungy and filthy. There was no way that I was going to get to know them. The actors at the theatre where I worked were too stuck-up to notice me, and the other behind-the-scenes workers like me had been working there for so long that they had formed a little community, almost. They were intent to make outsiders, aka me, feel unwelcome.

It worked.

October was almost the same. It wasn't until Halloween that anything changed.

At the end of every week I was sent out to throw away the leftover makeup from the theatre. None of the containers were completely empty, but there wasn't enough left to get any use out of them. Instead of throwing out the makeup, though, I held on to it, creating a small stash of useless makeup. But it wasn't useless, because by Halloween, I had gathered enough makeup to create a realistic-ish zombie costume.

No, I wasn't going to go trick-or-treating. At least, there would be no treats. I wanted to go from door to door, scaring each of the residents of my apartment building. I didn't expect it to be very convincing, maybe just scare them for a moment before they realized that it was just their friendly neighbor.

So, after I got home from work, I got out my stash of makeup and began to zombify myself. I made my skin look pale, added fake bones over my ribs so that it would look like they were sticking out, made dark shadows under my eyes, and put fake blood around my mouth. When that was done, I grabbed the nightgown that I had bought just for the occasion. It was a simple white gown that went down to my ankles, but I had splattered it in fake blood the night before.

I slipped into the nightgown, careful not to smudge my careful makeup, before turning to look at my completed costume in the mirror. It was probably just a trick of the light, or maybe the fact that the mirror was grimy and cracked, but for a moment I looked like a real zombie. I shook the thought off. I wasn't _that_ good at makeup.

I waited until it was dark out and almost all my neighbors were in their rooms before I snuck out into the hallway. I slowly tiptoed down the hall to Bernie's door. Bernie liked to watch zombie movies in the middle of the night. I knew this because he also liked to watch the movies really loudly.

I took a deep breath, holding back a nervous laugh. Trying to do my best impression of the sounds I sometimes heard from Bernie's room in the middle of the night, I made a low moan. I waited a moment before groaning louder, this time hitting the door.

"Wh-wh-who's there?" came a Bernie's terrified voice. I grinned to myself. I knew he would be scared.

I groaned again.

I heard the sound of Bernie's heavy steps slowly coming closer to the door. I moaned again as Bernie slowly opened the door a crack.

I attacked, lunging at his scared face. I made a sound somewhere between a groan and a roar, trying to push the door open. I heard a little girl scream, then realized that it was Bernie making that high-pitched squeal. The realization almost made me brake character, and I tried desperately not to burst into hysterical giggles.

"Bernie!" came a woman's irritated voice from down the hall. "Keep your zombie movies at a reasonable volume!"

I groaned as loud as I could.

"BERNIE!" said the irritated woman again. She threw her door open, and I recognized Gladys, another one of my fabulously friendly neighbors. She was dressed in a bathrobe, had her hair up in curlers, and had green goop all over her face. She stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she saw me.

I began to shuffle towards her, trying to mimic a decent zombie walk.

Gladys didn't move. For a moment, I was scared that she saw right through my disguise, but before I could give up and tell her I was sorry for dressing up like a zombie and trying to scare her (it suddenly hit me how immature I was being), she snapped out of her frozen stance and began to scream.

"HELP!" she cried. "ZOMBIE! CALL 911! HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!"

"Everyone started to open their doors, and I could see the annoyance on their faces turn to shock, then disbelief, then horror as they saw me, wearing a tattered, blood-stained nightgown and shuffling slowly down the hallway.

There were probably only eight rooms, with one or two people in each. But when everyone screamed at the same time, I was honestly surprised to find that the windows didn't shatter.

I decided to become I fast zombie, and boy, I gave those people a workout chasing them out of the building. For some, I had to barge into their rooms and corral them out. I was surprised that nobody tried to kill me. I mean, come on, if you really believe that I'm a zombie, shouldn't you want to kill me? Stop it from becoming a worldwide epidemic?

Once everyone was out, I stopped chasing them all. The entire building (all two floors of it) was empty, and it struck me that I had really scared these people. But, instead of feeling guilty, I felt proud. My makeup, done with nothing but a bunch of leftover theatre junk, had convinced everyone that I was a zombie. My makeup was that good.

Suddenly I heard sirens in the distance. _Wonder what that's about,_ I thought.

Instead of fading away, though, the sirens got louder and louder, until I could tell that the police cars were right outside the building. And they didn't drive by. The cars were parked right outside the building.

_Call 911,_ is what Gladys had said.

Fuck.

I started to panic. There was nowhere for me to go. I could try to scare the police, but they would probably shoot me. I could wash off my makeup, change into pajamas (preferably non-bloodstained ones), and pretend that I had slept through the whole thing, but there wasn't enough time. The cops were starting towards the building. I could just stand there and get sent to jail, but if my costume was really as good as it seemed, the police would think I was a zombie and shoot me on sight.

I was screwed.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

"You seem to have gotten yourself into quite the mess," said a voice from behind me.

I whirled around, expecting to see some person who I'd missed while chasing everyone away. Instead, I came face-to-face with a skeleton in a fancy suit.

I used to hate roller coasters. They used to terrify me. When I was on one, I would wrap my arms around the bar and stare straight forward, not moving a muscle. Eventually, I grew to like them, and now I always scream my head off. Roller coasters taught me something abut me and fear.

If I scream, then I'm enjoying myself and I'm not really scared. If I don't move and remain dead silent, then I'm terrified.

When I turned around and saw the super tall skeleton just standing there, I froze. I didn't move, and I remained dead silent.

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of here," said the skeleton. "I just want to congratulate you. That was quite the scare. I don't think any of those people are going to be able to sleep for weeks, maybe even months!"

I barely heard what he was saying. I was too scared to comprehend anything except that there was a skeleton talking to me.

"Um, no offense, but you zombies are awfully slow," continued the skeleton, not noticing my fear. "I don't want to have to do this, but if we're going to get back home before Halloween's over, I'm going to have to carry you back. Is that all right?"

He didn't wait for me to answer. In one smooth, effortless movement he scooped me up into his bony arms.

"What–" I started, but the skeleton leaped out of the window before I could finish my sentence.

The skeleton was unbelievably graceful. Especially for not having any muscles. He stayed in the shadows, careful not to let anyone see us. I don't think the cops even noticed our departure. We raced down the street, out of the town, into the woods.

_Where are we _going_?_

We raced past the small forts that the children liked to build. We flew past the river that the teenagers liked to jump in. We zoomed past the huge, ancient tree that couples liked to carve their initials into, encased in a heart. The skeleton ran faster than any Olympic racer, farther into the forest than anyone had gone for ages. There was no litter, no light, no sound of anything but nature and the wind whooshing past my ears. There was no trace of human life here, and it scared me even more than the skeleton did.

He could have been running for hours; he could have been running for minutes. Whatever the case, the skeleton eventually stopped at a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a circle of trees. Each tree was identical to the next, except for one (glaringly obvious) thing: on each tree was a door, shaped like something that had to do with a holiday. I saw a heart for Valentine's Day, a decorated tree for Christmas, and a jack-o'-lantern for Halloween.

"All right," said the skeleton. "Here we go." He walked to the tree with the jack-o'-lantern door, and, careful not to drop me (I felt my dignity being depleted every second he held me like a baby), opened it. My shock was poorly contained when I saw that the door opened up to nothing but darkness. I was about to ask–no, _demand_–to know what the hell was going on, but before I could open my mouth, I was tossed into the tree.

* * *

**AN:** Got that up faster than planned. I'm going on vacation soon, though, so I felt guilty. It'll probably be extremely difficult to update. I'll try.

This chapter turned out nothing like how I had it planned. I wrote the rough draft in a notebook, and trust me, it was nothing like this. I like this version better, though. I hope you guys do, too!


	3. 2 Misunderstanding

Something about being kidnapped by a talking skeleton, carried like a baby, tossed into a magical tree, falling down a swirling vortex full of spiders and screams, and then being carried like a baby (_again_) to some creepy-looking town with _even more monsters _all singing an dancing pissed me the hell off. After I got over my initial fear (but I was still plenty scared), I found my vision turning red.

And the stupid skeleton wasn't helping matters, either. He was _laughing_ the whole way down the swirly vortex. _Laughing!_ What, did he think falling down a swirly vortex of spiders and screams was _fun?_

(Okay, so maybe it was a teensy bit like a thrill ride. It didn't make me any less pissed.)

And seriously, why the were all these monsters singing? _This is Halloween,_ I get it already! Now please shut the fuck up! Well, at least the singing made the monsters slightly less frightening. I was already heading back towards my paralyzed fear.

And then, when the skeleton finally set me down, he just dashed off with an "Enjoy the parade!" without letting me ask, no, _demand_ to know that the was going on. The nerve of some people!

The music that seemed to be coming from nowhere quieted down, and two singing voices interrupted my silent ranting.

_In this town we call home  
__Everyone hail to the pumpkin song._

All the monsters started singing a chorus of _la la la_'s, and four very strange things happened.

First, a huge hole opened up in the ground, and out popped a giant rag doll with red hair tied back in a high ponytail. She was wearing a patchwork crop top and matching skirt, and waved enthusiastically to the crowd.

Second, a huge fire sprung to life. It then died down just as fast as it had been born, leaving behind a skeleton who looked almost exactly like the one who had kidnapped me, except this one had shaggy black hair and was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.

Third, a gust of wind blew a huge pile of leaves away. Once the leaves passed, there stood another giant ragdoll, this one a little larger than the first. She was wearing a patchwork dress and left her long red hair down.

And fourth, the fountain they were all standing in front of exploded. (Well, actually, the water shot out of the fountain and soaked everyone, including me in the way way back of the crowd—which totally ruined my zombie makeup. But my first thought was: bomb!) There, standing on the edge of the now-empty fountain was my favorite skeleton in the world. My kidnapper. The idiot who brought me here.

The other skeleton and the two rag dolls stepped onto the edge of the fountain. From left to right, they stood: little skeleton, big rag doll, kidnapper skeleton, little rag doll (not that the little skeleton and little rag doll were really that little, just in comparison to the others). My kidnapper waved to the crowd and tried to quiet everyone down.

"Would everyone please–"

"Wasn't that scary?"

"May I have–"

"Simply horrible!"

"Will you all just–"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

A horrible scream pierced the air. All of the monsters covered their ears (if they even had any) in a fruitless attempt to block out the noise. It sounded like pain, fear, sorrow, and terror.

When the scream finally stopped, I noticed that the only monsters that seemed unaffected by the sound were the skeletons and big rag doll. They were all calmly looking at the other rag doll with an amused look.

"Thank you, Cynthia," said my kidnapper. "Now, as I was trying to say–"

"No, dad, look!" The small rag doll pointed in my direction. All the monsters turned around and gasped. I looked behind me, but there wasn't anything there but a graveyard and a swirly hill (normally I would wonder about that, but when you've been kidnapped by a skeleton, tossed into a tree, and carried to a town full of monsters, there are bigger problems on your mind).

"How the hell did _that_ get here?" said the shorter skeleton.

"Jace!" cried the bigger rag doll. "Language!"

All at once, the monsters started talking and shouting at each other.

"How could this happen?"

"What's going on?"

"How did it find us?"

A squat man wearing a top hat waddled up to my kidnapper. He looked like a normal person, sort of, except his face was a strange blue and his eyes were pale yellow orbs.

"Jack!" he said. "A human! What do we do?"

_Oh,_ I thought._ They're looking at me._

"_I_ will go ask her," replied Jack, who turned out to be the skeleton who kidnapped me. "_You,_ Mayor, will continue the party without me." He stepped down from the fountain and walked towards me.

And then, because things hadn't gotten weird enough, the mayor's head _turned a full 180 degrees around_ to a normal, smiling face.

"Of course," he said. "I know you'll take care of this, Jack."

Jack, who was really starting to get on my nerves, picked me up _again_ and proceeded to carry me away from all the staring monsters. Right before the crowd disappeared behind the wall of the nearest building, though, I caught a quick glance of the large rag doll. She had a strange, knowing smile on her face and was slowly shaking her head.

* * *

"What are you?" asked Jack.

I couldn't speak. I was in shock.

"Please, you need to understand," he said. "It is vitally important to both me and you that you tell me who and what you are."

"I–I–I–" I cleared my throat. "I don't have to answer any of your questions. You have to answer _mine_."

"I'll answer what I can," he replied. "But there's much that I cannot tell you."

"What–" I was interrupted by a bang of the front door.

"Jack?" called a sweet voice.

Jack's face lit up immediately. "Sally?"

"Jack, what is going on?" A blue face popped around the corner. I recognized her instantly as the larger rag doll from the town square.

"What do you mean?" asked Jack innocently.

"I mean, what is going on?" Sally replied, stepping into the living room. "I saw the look on your face when you saw the girl. What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing!" he said. "There's nothing I'm not telling you!"

Sally rolled her eyes. "Jack, I know you better than that. Come here." She pulled him into the hallway, where I could only hear the mutterings of their voices.

I got up from the couch I had been sitting on and looked around. I hadn't really been paying attention when Jack had zoomed down the streets and into this giant mansion. I had been too scared. Now, looking around, I could see that it was decorated like a haunted mansion. There were cobwebs in the corners and bats on the ceiling. The giant window looking out over the town square seemed like something out of an old horror movie.

Looking out of that window at the monsters gathered in the square, I saw the monsters all laughing and talking like it was some kind of party. Looking at them from way up high seemed to make them all less scary. In fact, apart from the fact that everyone was a monster, the scene seemed like a normal community party. It was like when I was working backstage at the theatre and could see all the actors behind the characters. None of the actors I worked with were as nice as they seemed onstage, and none of these monsters seemed as scary as I had come to think after having horror movie marathons every October (oh, and if you like sleeping as much as I do, that is a very bad idea).

"What _is_ this place?" I whispered to myself.

"_What's this? What's this?  
__There are monsters everywhere.  
__What's this?  
__I hear screams in the air  
__What's this?_

_I can't believe my eyes  
__I must be sleeping  
__Wake up, Em, it's a nightmare!  
__What's this?_

_What's this? What's this?  
__There's something very wrong  
__What's this?  
__There are monsters singing songs!_

_What's this?  
__This town is full of  
__Evil creatures laughing  
__Why are monsters all so happy?  
__I've definitely gone daffy  
__What's this?_

_Instead of tossing baseballs  
__The kids are tossing heads  
__The mayor's giving an award  
__To someone who is dead_

_There are cobwebs in every corner  
__Oh, I can't believe my eyes  
__But yet I swear I feel a warmth  
__That's coming from inside_

Wait, what? Ugh, forget I ever said that!

_Oh, look  
__What's this?  
__Vampires playing hockey. He missed!  
__Don't see that every day, my god  
__The monsters are all cheering them on  
__Go team! Go team! Go team!  
__What's this?_

_What's this?  
__The mayor's got a trophy, how strange.  
__Who would ever thin  
__And why?_

_The man is speaking in a microphone  
__In an enthusiastic tone  
__And there's a smile on everyone!  
__So, now, correct me if I'm wrong  
__They're having fun!  
__They're having fun!  
__Even the one who is part fish  
__What's this?_

_Oh my, what now?  
__A frightening, masked trio  
__And look, they hide up in a tree  
__Now watch, they jump out and scare a big rag doll  
__Who screams and jumps, but then starts laughing with them  
__And joins them in their scaring  
__What's this?_

_The monsters don't seem scary  
__In fact, nothing scary here is found  
__In it's place there seems to be  
__A good feeling all around_

_I expected screams, but now I can hear  
__Music in the air  
__The smell of tasty food  
__Is absolutely everywhere_

_The sights, the sounds!  
__They are everywhere and all around  
__I've never felt so confused before  
__Surrounded here by monsters I am not afraid  
__Which means I must have gone insane_

_What's going on? What's going on?  
__Oh, someone tell me where I am  
__I've got to know  
__I've got to know  
__What is this place that I have found?  
__What is this?_

_Wait a second,_ I thought. _Was I just … Singing? What the fuck?_

I heard Jack and Sally enter the room.

"Now," said Sally. "I am very sorry for probably scaring you."

"Oh no," I said. "I'm not scared. I mean, I _was_, at first. But not anymore."

"Oh," said Sally, sounding surprised. "Um, I guess that's good. Do you need a towel?"

I looked down at my clothes. I hadn't realized that I was still soaked from the fountain exploding. "Yes, please."

"I'll go get it," said Sally, leaving the room as she spoke.

"I'm Jack Skellington, by the way," said Jack. "And that was my wife, Sally."

"I'm Emily Hart," I said.

"Pleased to meet you, Emily," said Jack. "I'm terribly sorry, I believe that there's been a huge misunderstanding. You see, I was doing some last minute scaring when I heard an unusually large amount of screams. I was going to go congratulate whoever was responsible for such a good scare, but then I saw the police cars parked outside. When I entered the building and saw the zombie who was responsible for the huge scare, I knew that she would never be able to get out on her own because zombies aren't great at sneaking. So I carried the zombie through the tree shortcut to get back home–" (At this point Sally came back with the towel. I thanked her and started to dry my hair as she went to sit next to Jack.) "–but while I was entertaining the townspeople the zombie somehow turned into a human. In fact, the only reason that I knew that the zombie had turned into the human was that the human was wearing the same blood-soaked nightgown." I automatically looked down at my dripping wet clothes. "Would you care to explain to me how this happened?"

"You're right," I said. "This is a _huge_ misunderstanding. See, I used this leftover theatre makeup–" I stopped short.

Oh my god.

All the people in the crappy apartment building had thought that I was a zombie. They thought that their lives were in jeopardy. My makeup had been _that good_.

But my makeup had been even better than that. Here is a skeleton, an actual _monster_, telling me that he had thought that _I_ was also a monster. My makeup skills had tricked an actual monster!

Oh my _god!_

"Is something wrong?" asked Jack, confused by my sudden silence.

"No, no, no," I said. "Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Everything's great, actually! This is _amazing_! Oh my _god_!"

"I beg your pardon?" said Jack.

I quickly explained my dream job, the weeks of collecting makeup, and putting together my costume to scare my neighbors.

"And then they all thought I was an actual zombie!" I said. "But this is different. You're an actual _monster_—no offense."

"None taken."

"My makeup skills are amazing!"

"Oh dear," said Sally.

"This is awesome!"

"No, this is not awesome," said Jack. "This is bad. This is very, very bad."

"How is this bad?" I said. "I'm a genius!"

"Listen, Emily," said Sally. "You are human. And humans aren't supposed to know about the town or us. It's pretty much law. Granted, you are still probably very confused about everything, but you still know too much. The monsters out there –" She pointed out the window. "– will most likely kill you once they found out that we haven't already."

"Wait, what?" I said, my euphoric mood evaporating faster than you can say "scared as hell".

Another loud bang of the front door interrupted our conversation.

"Mom?" came a girl's voice. "Dad?"

"Where are you guys?" said a guy's voice.

"In here," answered Jack.

"No!" Sally whisper-shouted. She gestured to the hallway, then gestured to me, and then slowly dragged her hand across her throat in a slicing movement.

"Whoops," said Jack.

"Hey," said the girl's voice, coming closer and closer. "The Boogie Boy's are having a party and everyone is going and they are having it in Oogie's old lair so it's going to be pretty awesome, just like every year, so can we go? Oh and I already said that we were so–" The speaker (who was, unsurprisingly, the smaller rag doll from the town) stopped short when she saw me and let out a loud gasp. "You brought it _here_?" she asked incredulously.

"Brought what here?" said the other voice, and in walked the other skeleton. When he saw me he stopped, raised his eyebrow (or whatever the heck a skeleton's equivalent of eyebrow-raising is), and said, "Congratulations, dad! Turn the whole town against us!"

"Jace, Cynthia," said Sally. "This is Emily."

I raised my hand. "Sup?"

"OMG," said Cynthia. "Nobody is going to believe this!"

"Yes," said Jack. "Because you aren't going to tell anybody."

"Of course not, dad!" said Cynthia sweetly. "I'm going to go get ready for the party!" She ran out of the room.

"You know that she's going to tell everyone," said Jace.

"Yes," Jack sighed. "Go tell her that she can't go to the party."

Jace sighed. "Which means that _I_ can't go, either." He left the room.

"Emily," Jack said, turning back to me. "I'm afraid that you are going to have to stay here for tonight. We'll try to sneak you back home tomorrow. With any luck, everyone will forget about you and you'll be back to your life in no time."

_Yea, well luck is never exactly on my side,_ I thought.

"I'll show you to your room and get you a change of clothes," said Sally, eying my still-soaked nightgown. "Come on,"

I followed her down the hall to a small room with a bed, dresser, mirror, and window. The bedspread was a plain black, and the bedframe was wrought iron. The dresser was made of a very dark wood, and there were spider webs in every corner.

"You'll sleep here for tonight," said Sally. "If you need anything, let me know."

"Um, a toothbrush please?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, and left the room.

A strange feeling swept over me; not homesickness, I didn't miss my dirty little apartment or the modern mansion I grew up in. It was more like that feeling when you first walk into your house after a long trip and feel comforted by the familiarity. Like when a couple buys their first house and makes it their own. Like a man in the navy coming home.

That's what it felt like. Coming home.

I shook my head. _This isn't home,_ I told myself. _This is a town full of monsters that want to kill you. You are going home tomorrow, and it will be just like this never happened._

I looked out the window. In the distance was that strange swirly hill outlined by the moon. The sight was haunting yet beautiful, and I felt a shiver go down my spine.

"WHAT?! That is so unfair!" shouted an angry voice from above me, interrupting my train of thought. I looked up to see an air vent. It must have been connected to Cynthia's room.

"Sis," said another voice that I recognized as Jace's. "Calm down. You're going to split a seam."

"I don't care!" came Cynthia's voice. "My life is over! Ugh!"

I heard footsteps leave the room.

"Drama queen," muttered Jace.

I stifled a giggle. Seems that even monsters can throw hissy fits.

* * *

**AN:** I'm back! Vacation was fun, thanks for asking. It's good to be home, though.

Chapters just seem to be getting longer and longer, aren't they? Although, in the rough draft, it took five chapters to get to this point. I thought those chapters were a little short, so I combined them, so I guess it makes sense that these chapters are longer.

Songs: _This is Halloween_ and _What's This?_

Please R&R!

Adiós!


	4. 3 Meet the Boogie Boys

I woke with a start. My eyes were wide open, but my face was pressed up against the blankets and I couldn't see. I tried to identify what had woken me up. Was it Bernie's zombie movies again? A group of teens outside? Deciding that it didn't matter, I snuggled back into my blankets and closed my eyes.

_Bang._

I jumped out of my bed and looked around for the source of the noise. For a second, I didn't know where I was. This wasn't my dirty little apartment. It was too nice.

But when I looked out the window at the spiral hill, the events of last night (or earlier this night, since it was still dark out) came crashing down on me like a sledgehammer. I groaned. So it wasn't a dream.

I heard a whispered voice from above me say, "What are you three _doing_ here?" I recognized the voice as Cynthia's.

"Nice to see you, too, Cynth," said an unfamiliar female voice.

"We felt bad that your dad wouldn't let you come to the party," whispered another unfamiliar voice, this one male. "So we came to visit."

"Do you really have a human sleeping here?" said the first voice.

"Yes! Can you believe it?" said Cynthia excitedly.

_What?!_ I thought to myself. _The brat _told_ someone? What the hell?!_

"OMG, show us!" squealed the unknown female voice.

"Come on!" said Cynthia. I heard footsteps walking out of the room.

I frantically looked around the room. There was no way out, except for the window, which was several stories up. There was no way I was jumping out of that. I would break a leg, and then end up being eaten by some other monster because I wouldn't be able to run. Basically, I was screwed.

"Hellooooooo, human!" Cynthia whisper-shouted, barging into my room. "I brought friends!"

I opened my mouth to say that I didn't want to meet her friends, thank you very much, when three masked figures walked in and a fresh wave of fear washed over me.

The first to enter was a devil wearing a red hoodie, black jeans, and a grinning red mask. His tail flicked back and forth like an irritable snake and I could see small horns popping out of his hair.

Second was a witch wearing a short purple dress, tall black boots (a part of me wanted to ask her where she had gotten them), a purple witch hat, and a frowning green mask with a huge hooked nose.

And third was a ghoul with a black t-shirt with a skeleton print, black jeans, and a round grinning blue mask.

"Lock!" said the devil, removing his mask. He was, well, _hot_. He had shaggy red hair, strong jaw, and a lopsided grin … that became slightly less attractive when I saw his pointed teeth.

"Shock!" said the witch, taking off her mask. She had green skin, a _huge_ head of black hair, and a small nose. She was pretty, I guess, but her looks almost seemed fake.

"And Barrel!" said the ghoul, ripping his mask off. His face was round and boyish, and I noticed that he was about three inches shorter than I was (and I've never been a tall person).

"Nice to meet ya!" said Lock, stepping forward.

"We are–" started Shock.

"The Boogie Boys!" finished Barrel.

I stared at them.

"Aw, look, it's scared," giggled Shock.

I struggled to find my voice. "N-n-no I'm not!"

Shock giggled again.

"I'm not scared of you guys!" I said, steadier this time. "And my name is Emily, not _'it'_."

"Whatever you say," said Shock.

"Wow, your parents are crazy to bring it here," said Lock, turning to Cynthia.

"Tell me about it," she groaned. "Everyone's going to hate us."

"How could anyone hate you?" asked Lock. He wrapped his arms around her. "You're perfect."

I saw Barrel shoot Shock with an amused look, but she wasn't looking at him, and his face fell.

Cynthia giggled (lots of giggling going on). "I suppose."

"And then there's the fact that you're the Pumpkin Princess," said Lock. "And if anyone tried to hurt you, they'd have to get through me."

"Okay!" said Barrel. "That's enough gushy romance for one night!"

"Speaking of romance, where's Jace?" said Shock.

"Pfft–listen to you!" Cynthia answered. "'Speaking of romance.' I don't know what you see in my brother."

"It's just a natural sibling reaction to think that," said Shock. "Lock is like a brother to me, and I don't know what you see in him."

"Hey!" said Lock indignantly. "I'm right here!"

"I'm sorry, Lock," said Shock. "But after having lived with you since death, I know pretty much every embarrassing little secret about you, and it's hard to understand why anyone would have an attraction to someone who used to–"

"All right!" Lock interrupted. "I get it!"

"So," said Barrel. "What are you guys going to do about _it_?" He pointed to me. Nice to know that I hadn't been forgotten (and that I was still considered an "it").

"Dad's probably putting it back tomorrow," said Cynthia (seriously, I had told them my name; would it kill them to use it?). "And then the town will move on like it never happened."

"Can we play with it?" asked Shock excitedly (what did she think I was, a giant paper doll?)

"I'm sure my dad will want it to be in one piece," said Cynthia (_Oh my god,_ I thought._ If they call me "it" one more time …_). "So no."

"Awwww." Shock pouted. "But it would be fun to torture it!"

I snapped. I jumped off the bed and stormed up to Shock (only because she was the last one to speak) and looked her in the eye (which was hard to do, since she was half a head taller than me).

"I. Am not. An 'it'," I seethed. "My name is Emily. You will call me Emily, her, or even 'the human', as long as I am not 'it'. Got it?"

"You've got spunk, _Emily_," said Shock. She turned to Cynthia. "I like her. Of course, her spunk would probably get her killed with most monsters, but I like her. Can you ask her dad to keep her a little longer?"

Strangely, the idea of being kept here a little longer didn't horrify me as much as it should have.

"It doesn't matter if you like it," said a voice. I turned to see Jace standing in the doorway. "It's going home tomorrow."

"Excuse me, Mr. Buzzkill," said Shock, turning to look at the skeleton with her hands on her hips. "But Emily doesn't like being called 'it'."

"So it has a name," said Jace.

"Your dad introduced us," I said. "Remember?"

He ignored me and turned to the Boogie Boys. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Do you not want us here?" said Shock.

"No, it's just that my dad will freak out if he finds out."

"They've done it before," Cynthia pointed out.

"Yea, but what about the human? It might tattle," said Jace, pointedly not looking at me. Seriously, I _was_ the topic of discussion. Could the guy at least _acknowledge_ my presence?

"Emily wouldn't tell," said Shock. "I hope." She turned towards me. "You wouldn't, right?"

"Of course not," I assured her.

"It's lying," Jace insisted, still staring anywhere other than where I was.

"Well, there's nothing we can do if she is lying," said Cynthia. "So we're just going to have to trust her."

"Trust it?" Jace asked incredulously.

"Yes," Cynthia said.

"Are you insane?" Jace said.

"Jace," Shock said quietly, taking hold of his hand. "She'll be gone tomorrow. Does it really matter?"

Jace sighed. "I guess not. But I'm still not comfortable with it."

"Anyway, I'm sure she's getting tired," said Barrel. "We should go. The tub might run off if we're not careful. Nice meeting you, Emily."

Needless to say, I was confused as to what he meant by "the tub." But I just smiled and said "Bye!" and tried not to yawn (because I really was getting tired).

"Oh, and one more thing," said Jace as the Boogie Boys started to leave (after a goodbye kiss between Jace and Shock and a goodbye make-out session between Lock and Cynthia). "I know that some of you are bad at keeping secrets." Everyone looked at Shock. "So can you guys just promise not to tell anyone? We don't need an angry mob at our doorstep tomorrow morning."

"Of course, Jace," the trio said, their hands clasped behind their backs. "We promise."

"Good," said Jace.

The Boogie Boys left with a "Bye, Emily!" from Shock. Cynthia followed, muttering a "Hope you have nightmares, Jace, Emily." And Jace was the last to leave. Pausing as he walked out the door.

I must have imagined it, but I could have sworn that I heard him say "Goodnight, Emily."

* * *

**AN:** I am so sorry that chapter took me … however long it took me. I wasn't counting and I'm too lazy too count. But I have this summer reading project and I am normally a total procrastinator, so I was trying to avoid finishing the book report on the first day of school (which I had a dream about, actually) and was working nonstop on it for the past … again, I wasn't counting, so I don't really know.

Anyway, I was re-reading the last chapter and I didn't really like it. I guess I was trying to update as fast as possible that I wrote a crappy chapter. And this chapter's purpose was just to introduce some important characters and explain the current romantic relationships, which are eventually going to change (can anybody guess who Emily ends up with?) so it was not an extremely interesting chapter. I'll try to make the next one better!


	5. 4 Another Town Meeting Gone Wrong

When I woke up the next morning, there seemed to be a strange commotion coming from the front of the house. I got out of bed, ignoring the black dots that swam before my eyes as I did so, and left the room. At the end of the hallway was the huge spiral staircase that went up to the Skellington's rooms and down to the kitchen and front hall. As I watched, Jace ran down the stairs faster than an Olympic sprinter, calling down, "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

_What is going on?_ I thought to myself as I walked down the hall to investigate. I could hear a loud banging and many roars, screeches, and shouts coming from downstairs.

"Jack!" I heard Sally say from downstairs. "Get the girl out of here!"

"If I leave, the whole town will storm in here!" said Jack.

"Can you outrun them?" Sally asked.

"Not carrying her!" shouted Jack.

"Jace!" Sally said.

"I'm on it!" answered Jace. Before I had time to realize what was happening, Jace flew back up the stairs and crashed right into me, sending me sprawling onto the floor.

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing my bruised temple. Skeletons are _hard_.

"Sorry," said Jace, not sounding sorry in the slightest bit. "Listen, human, I've got to get you out of here." He tried to pick me up, but I darted out of his grasp.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on," I said, crossing my arms.

Jace sighed impatiently. "Lock, Shock, and Barrel told everyone that you're here and still alive so now the entire town is trying to bust down the door and kill you so I have to run you back to your world and you have to hide so that you don't die. Personally, I think we should just hand you over because you're just endangering our family and our world by being here and being alive, but my parents are against killing you for some ridiculous reason, so now I have to come to your rescue. Now_ come on_." He scooped me up, and this time I didn't resist (even though I could feel my ego slipping away every time a skeleton carried me like a baby).

"Hold on tight," he said, turning to the window at the end of the hall.

"Oh, no," I said. "Isn't there another way out?"

"Nope," said Jace.

"Please, no–"

"Going somewhere?" said a voice from behind us. Jace whirled around, and I saw a hideous witch with a long, pointy nose sitting on a floating broom. Terror washed over me and I could hardly breathe.

"Yep," said Jace, turning back to the window.

"Wrong!" cackled a second witch who had magically materialized in front of the window while Jace's back was turned. This one was smaller than the first.

"Give us the girl!" shouted the larger one.

"Listen, I would love to," said Jace, and I glared at him. "But my dad would ground be for a century, and I mean _in the ground_, so I'm going to have to say no."

"Jace!" shouted Jack from downstairs. "What is going on?"

"Nothing!" Jace called down. "I've got it under control!"

"You do?" I asked.

"Not really," admitted Jace.

"Die!" screeched the smaller witch, charging toward us on her broom.

"Jace?" called Jack.

"Really, dad, it's fine!" Jace said, dodging the witch.

"No it's not!" I screamed. Jace was doing a funky-chicken dance, trying to avoid the witches' brooms and spells, and I was starting to feel sick. "Help!"

"Shut up!" hissed Jace.

The loud banging downstairs stopped, replaced by a huge roar and pounding feet. I caught a glimpse of Jack racing up the stairs before Jace spun to avoid a spell.

"Jace!" cried Jack. He grabbed the big witch's broom and threw her out the window. The other quickly followed. "You do not have it under control!"

"Jack!" screamed Sally. Jace turned (still holding me like a baby; god, my ego was hurting) to the stairs. Sally and Cynthia were racing towards us. "They're coming!"

"Whose 'they'?" I asked nervously.

"Morning, human!" said Cynthia brightly, waving. "Just the entire town, that's who. Oh, and they all want to kill you."

"Well, shit," I said.

"I got this," said Jack, walking towards the staircase. A strange darkness seemed to surround him, and I felt fear crush me like a bug. He seemed to get bigger and more menacing with each step, and it took a tremendous effort not to hide my face in Jace's chest.

A huge crowd of monsters stormed up the stairs, roaring and screeching and screaming and just downright scaring the shit out of me. They all rushed towards Jack, who stopped walking.

"BOOOOOO!" he screamed, his voice shaking the house and stopping everyone in their tracks. I was paralyzed, and it seemed like everyone else was too, terror frozen on their terrifying faces.

The darkness that was crowded around Jack faded, and he seemed less like a terrifying creature and more like . . . a slightly less terrifying creature.

"Bad morning, everyone," said Jack calmly. "I trust that you all slept terribly."

"Jack!" cried someone, and I saw the mayor push his way to the front of the crowd. He had his unhappy face on. "Why is the human still alive and well?"

"Ah, yes, the girl," said Jack. He cleared his throat. "I'd like to call a town meeting."

"When?" asked the mayor.

"_Immediately!_" Jack shouted

* * *

"So, how did you sleep?" said Cynthia, happily walking alongside me.

"Great," I said.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she said.

She didn't see the strange look I gave her.

Me and the Skellington's were walking to the Town Hall for the meeting that would decide my fate. Sally tried to be reassuring and convince me that Jack would convince the town to let me go home, but I wasn't so sure. The monsters I passed on the streets all looked at me with a mixture of fear, anger, and hunger. It was enough to make me sick with fear.

And then there was the fact that I wasn't totally sure that I wanted to go home. But I wasn't going to tell anybody that.

"Hey, Emily!" called a familiar voice. I turned around to see Lock, Shock, and Barrel coming towards us in a . . . walking bathtub? It was probably what Barrel had meant by "the tub" the night before, but . . .

_Not even going to ask, _I decided.

"Hi, guys!" said Cynthia.

"Hey, Cynth," said Lock. He winked at her.

"Omg, Emily!" said Shock, hopping out of the tub and rushing towards me. "Hi! So sorry about telling everyone, but when Jace made us promise we just _had_ to cross our fingers because it's like been our thing since _forever_ like when we promised Sally that we wouldn't steal the beetle cookies she was making or when we promised Corpse Kid's mom that we wouldn't brake Corpse Kid's tricycle or when we promised Jack that we wouldn't involve Oogie in our plans to kidnap Sandy Claws when Jack took over Christmas or when we promised–"

"Wait, Jack took over Christmas?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Shock. "It was really fun. Especially when the people shot him out of the sky. But then it turned out he was alive."

"What?" I said, completely confused.

"Hang on a moment," said Jack, frowning. "How do you–" he pointed to me "–know _them_." He pointed to the Boogie Boys.

"Uh…" said Cynthia.

"I think it's time–" said Barrel.

"That we–" said Shock.

"Skedaddled!" said Lock. Shock leapt into the tub, which then turned onto full speed and scampered away.

What loyal friends.

"Cynthia, Jace," said Jack warningly.

"It's a funny story," said Jace nervously.

"You see, dad–" Cynthia started.

"It was my fault," I interrupted. "I tried to run away last night and I ran into those three. They were going to torture me or something when Jace and Cynthia heard me calling for help and rescued me. Then we all just talked for a little bit and now we're friends. Although–" I glared in the direction that the tub ran off to. "–I'm not feeling very friendly towards them right now."

"Oh," said Jack. "Well, in that case, good job, Cynthia and Jace."

"But Emily, honey, don't you worry," said Sally. "There's no need to run away. We're going to get you home safe and sound."

I smiled at her.

"In any case, we're here now," said Jack, pointing towards a large black building ahead. All the monsters were entering it.

"Come on," said Jack, walking forward. We all followed him into the building, me being the last to enter. Inside all the monsters were finding their seats and talking to their friends. I looked around to see a balding zombie man talking to a fat man in a top hat (not the mayor, though), a small Cyclops chatting with a fat man with an ax in his head, and a man that was made out of some oozy substance gossiping with a one-eyed mummy. I turned in circles, taking in as much of the bizarre sight as I could. A fat clown on a unicycle zoomed past me, barely missing me and giving me a start, and I caught a strange, indescribable look on Sally's face.

"Over here, Emily," called Jack from the front of the room. He was standing behind a podium on top of a large stage. The monsters parted to let me through, muttering in low voices and shooting me evil glares. Instead of feeling scared, though, I felt defiant. I lifted my chin and walked to the front of the room without looking at any of them.

"Here," said Jack. He reached down and lifted me onto the stage. Behind him was a single chair, and I guessed that was my seat.

Jack tapped on the microphone. "Listen, everyone!"

Everyone shut up.

"I want to tell you about Emily." He gestured to me.

JACK

_This girl is so peculiar_  
_She is not to be believed_  
_Her aura makes people scream louder than a train_

_She did a scare unlike anything I've ever seen_  
_And as hard as I try_  
_I can't seem to describe_  
_Like a most improbable dream_

_But you must believe when I tell you this_  
_It's as real as my skull and it does exist_  
_Let me tell you_

_This girl may be simply a mere human_  
_But there is scary hidden deep inside_

HARLEQUIN DEMON

_Scary?_

DEVIL

_You're joking!_

WEREWOLF

_A human?_

HARLEQUIN DEMON

_Being scary?_

DEVIL

_Scary,_  
_A human? Impossible!_

JACK

_If you please_  
_She scared a whole building of people_  
_Who then ran and called the police!_

WITCHES

_The police?_  
_Oh please!_  
_We're in danger_  
_Just kill it!_  
_Just kill it!_

JACK

_I will not kill the girl, as you already know_

CLOWN

_But it'll tell!_

CREATURE UNDER THE STAIRS

_And we'll die!_

CLOWN

_We'll go to hell!_

CREATURE UNDER THE STAIRS

_Not to hell!_

UNDERSEA GAL

_Perhaps it's best if we drown it in the lake_

JACK

_Listen now, you don't understand_  
_That will not be done in Halloween land_

_Now, don't interrupt_  
_This girl will not tell our secret_  
_She's far too afraid to cross us_

MR. HYDE

_Oh, yes! Until it gets the army_

MEDIUM MR. HYDE

_All the humans will want to see_

SMALL MR. HYDE

_The monsters that live in a magical tree_

JACK

_Please, let me explain_  
_The girl, Emily, has a fear aura like us_  
_She wasn't scared by my sudden appearence_

WINGED DEMON

_Not scared?_  
_That's a lie_

MUMMY

_It's got no aura_

WINGED DEMON

_No aura at all_

CORPSE KID

_Let's take it and lock it_  
_For thousands of years_

MAYOR

_What a splendid idea_  
_Torturing the human sounds fun_  
_Why, I fully endorse it_  
_Let's try it at once_

JACK

_Everyone, please now, not so fast_  
_There's something here that you don't quite grasp_  
_Well, I may as well give them what they want_

_And the best, I must confess, I have saved for the last_  
_For the father of this human girl_  
_Is a fearsome man with a deep mighty voice_  
_Least that's what I've come to understand_

_And I've also heard it told_  
_That he's something to behold_  
_Like a demon, terrifying and evil_  
_And he sets out to slay with his fighting gear on_  
_Carting weapons of mass destruction in his big great arms_  
_That is, so I've heard it said_

_And on a dark, cold night_  
_Under full moonlight_  
_This man came alive_  
_Like a zombie in the night_  
_And they call him Undead Jaws_

_Well, at least they're excited_  
_Though they don't understand_  
_The fear aura that this young girl has_  
_Oh, well…_

"Oh well?" I demanded, trying not to dwell on the fact that the entire town meeting was done in song (no one else seemed to notice, so it must not be a big deal; I had sung myself back at the Skellington's house). "Oh well? What are you thinking? My dad's not a terrifying man. He's a nerd! He invents stupid gadgets for a living! And 'Undead Jaws'? Seriously, what is this? Some lame zombie-slash-shark movie? And what's all this crap about a 'fear aura' that I supposedly have?"

"Dad!" called Jace, stepping onto the stage. "Are you insane?"

"Are you crazy?" said Cynthia, right behind him.

"Jack, you did it again," said Sally.

Jack looked sheepishly at all of us. "I'm very sorry, but we're going to have to talk about this when we get home."

We walked back to the Skellington's house in silence, all of us glaring at Jack in silence and him pointedly not looking at us. The second we walked through the front door everyone stared at Jack expectantly. He ignored us, though, and went into the living room to sit down. Everyone followed his example, still staring at him.

He sighed. "I owe everyone an apology."

"Damn right, you do!" said Jace.

"Jace! Language!" said Sally.

Jack looked at me. "I'm going to start by explaining everything to Emily."

"Good, because I am seriously confused," I replied.

"I suppose I should start with the fear aura," he said.

"No," I said. "You should start with where I am. I still don't know what this place is."

"Right," said Jack. "You are in Halloween Town. Everyone here lives to scare humans on one day of the year. Every other day is filled with planning for next year."

"Okay," I said slowly. "Let me process that."

It would make sense. I met Jack on Halloween, and everyone had been singing "This is Halloween" that night. At the time I had just thought that they really liked the holiday, but I guess they could have been singing about their town.

"All right," I said. "Go on. Fear aura."

Jack looked at me warily, probably confused by my calm reaction, before continuing. "A fear aura is an unseen force that surrounds all monsters. Only humans are affected by it. Being close enough to a monster causes a human to feel fear. Different monster's auras have different levels of intensity."

"But I don't have a fear aura," I said. "I'm human!"

"But you said that you weren't afraid of us last night," Jack said. Gosh, was it only last night that I got here? It seemed like ages ago. "And having a fear aura makes you immune to other monster's fear auras."

"I am so confused," I muttered.

"Plus, I can sense other monster's fear auras," Jack added. "Your fear aura isn't strong, in fact it's definitely the weakest aura I've ever seen, but it's definitely there."

"How can you sense–"

"Emily," interrupted Sally. "Have you ever felt different from everyone else?"

"Well, yea," I said. "But everyone feels that way at some point of their lives."

"Think, Emily," Sally urged. "Have you ever walked into the room and everyone has gotten silent? Ever sat down next to someone and seen them flinch a little?"

I thought back. In sixth grade my dad moved me from a public school to a fancy private school. I walked into homeroom on the first day, and everyone who had been talking and laughing with their friends just stopped all of a sudden. And when my teacher showed me my seat, the kid next to me had moved away ever so slightly. Nobody talked to me for the first two months, until I was forced into a group for a project. Even then, it wasn't until we had to go over to each other's houses and practice our project that they stopped treating me with an icy distance, and that was probably because my house was a supersized mansion.

But even before that, in preschool, I was playing on the jungle gym with a group of kids. One little girl shouted out "Emily's a scary monster! Run away!", and everyone ran, screaming, off the playground. Nobody would sit next to me for arts-n-crafts. When I was a witch on Halloween, some boy said that I should wear my costume every day.

And my dad once told me a story about when I was a baby. He said that one of his friends brought their twin boys over to play with me, but the babies would cry whenever I came near them.

It was like everyone was scared of me.

"Jesus," I breathed.

"Well, that's all great," said Jace. "But it doesn't explain why you told everyone that her dad is some evil murderer."

I realized with a start that it was the first time he hadn't referred to me as "the human" or "it". He probably did it on accident, though.

"That was the only way I saw to keep the townspeople from killing her," Jack answered.

"And 'Undead Jaws?'," I asked.

Jack looked embarrassed. "Yes, I just came up with it on the spot. The whole incident was reminding me of another time I . . . exaggerated a bit during a town meeting–" Sally let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "–so I may have incorporated a few things from that incident into this one."

"Why did you exaggerate during that other town meeting?" I asked.

Everyone smirked at Jack. "Tell her, dad," said Cynthia.

"It really isn't necessary for her to know," Jack said.

"We'll tell her if you don't," said Cynthia.

"Well," said Jack. "About twenty years ago, I may have . . . taken over Christmas."

"Oh yea, I heard about that," I said.

"From who?" Jack asked.

"Um, Shock did say something about it . . . but she wouldn't give me any details."

"Oh," said Jack. "Well, I was getting tired of being the Pumpkin—of being a scary monster. After another Halloween, I went for a walk to sort of wallow in my misery, and I found this little circle of trees, each one with a strangely shaped door. The most eye-catching one was a strange tree covered in lights, so I went to that one. When I opened the door, a gust of cold wind pulled me down a swirly vortex and into a strange town."

"That sounds familiar," I said.

"Yes, but where Halloween Town is dark and scary, this town was bright and happy," Jack said, smiling at the memory. "I discovered the name of the town—Christmas Town—and brought some things back to Halloween Town to show everyone. I called a town meeting, but then nobody understood what I was telling them, so I ended up exaggerating like I did today.

"I tried to find a way for the townspeople to understand Christmas, and figured that I could make a better Christmas than the one Sandy was doing. I had the entire town help me make a Christmas, and on Christmas Eve the Boogie Boy's kidnapped Sandy Claws."

"_Sandy Claws?_" I asked.

"Yes," said Jack. "What about him?"

I shook my head. "Never mind."

"Anyway, I flew in a coffin-sleigh pulled by skeletal reindeer and delivered toys to children, but all the toys were dangerous and frightening, and I got shot out of the sky by the humans," He said. "I realized how delusional I had been, especially with entrusting the Boogie Boy's with Sandy, and I rushed back to Halloween Town to save him."

"Why was trusting the Boogie Boy's with Sandy a bad idea?" I asked.

"Well, at the time, they had a master named Oogie Boogie who was pretty much the closest we have to a criminal here," Jack said. "They gave Sandy to him, and I rescued him just in time, killed Oogie, and then Sandy saved Christmas."

"Were the Boogie Boy's mad at you when you killed Oogie?" I asked.

"Not really," Jack replied. "They were just children at the time, so everyone argued over who would watch over them. I guess none of them wanted to be looked after anymore, so they just . . . grew up."

"I don't understand," I said.

"No one ages here, except by choice, and they chose to get older."

"Oh," I said. "That's nice."

"Anyway, that's how Jack stole Christmas, minus all the gushy romance, of course" said Jace. I wondered what he meant by that. "But now we have to deal with how Jack stole a human."

"I think she's going to have to stay here for a while," said Sally, looking at me apologetically. "Just until things calm down."

I was done trying to comprehend my reactions to everything; ever since I'd gotten here, my body seemed to react the wrong way to everything. I should have been horrified. I should have been terrified of being kept here, in this town of monsters, longer than planned. I should have turned into my statue of fear at the thought.

But, strangely enough, I was elated. I was relieved that I wouldn't be going home quite yet. I was ecstatic to be part of this supernatural society, if only temporarily. I practically leaped off my seat and did a happy dance around the room. As it was, everyone would probably think I was crazy (let me amend that—crazier than usual) if I did that, so I remained seated, but not without difficulty.

(But I decided to forgive Lock, Shock, and Barrel. Their incapability to keep a secret meant that I could stay longer!)

"Maybe she could stay at Dr. Fink's," suggested Jace, unaware of my sudden euphoria. "Everyone would think that she was still here. It would keep them away from her."

Jace was still calling me "her", I noticed. Maybe it wasn't on accident.

"Good idea," said Jack. "I'll take her over now."

"No, I got it," said Jace, getting up.

"All right then. Just don't be seen."

Jace sighed. "No worries, dad. I learned from the best."

From the way that Jack smiled, it was clear Jace was talking about him. "That you did."

"Oh, one more thing," Sally said. "This time, don't let the Boogie Boy's find out where Emily is."

I couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

**AN: **So I invented the fear aura, made Emily very confused about what she wants, and destroyed another TNBC song. All in a day's (or two week's—I did the math this time!) work. Working on the lyrics is hard. I can't even imagine what it's like to write a song from scratch.

I'm also working on another story—not a fanfic—so working on both of them at the same time is probably going to delay progress on both stories. I apologize.

Song: _Town Meeting Song_

Please R&R!


	6. 5 Dr Finkelstein

Jace carried me out of the house. It was annoying, yes, but I had realized by that point that I would be carried a lot if I stayed in Halloween Town. I decided that it was worth it.

"Hey, thanks for helping me and Cynth out with my dad," he said. First, he called me 'her', and now he was thanking me? This was a good sign. Maybe, in a few weeks, the whole town would be done with calling me 'it'. The thought made me grin.

"No problem," I said.

"He can be pretty rough on punishments," Jace continued. "Especially when it comes to anything associated with the Boogie Boy's. He thinks they're a bad influence. I guess it's because they were pretty nasty as kids, but they've gotten better. Well, a little better." He chuckled at some memory.

There was a pause filled only by Jace's footsteps and the never-ending screams of Halloween Town.

"Hey, how old are you?" I asked.

"Eighteen," he said. "Cynthia's seventeen."

"Really?" I said. "And you haven't moved out? Or does it work differently here?"

"No, Halloween town runs almost the same as a normal town," said Jace. "But our equivalent of the human's legal age of adulthood is twenty."

"Aw, damn it," I said. "I just went from 'adult' back to 'teenager'."

"Are you eighteen, too?"

"Yup."

"Cool," said Jace. "Lock is twenty, Shock is nineteen, and Barrel is eighteen. They stopped aging about two years ago."

The two witches flew by, chatting loudly enough for us to hear them.

"So Jack's new thing is humans, huh?" cackled one.

"I suppose so," the other answered. "But maybe it's just humans with monster fathers."

"Well, whatever it is, it's almost weirder than the whole Christmas fiasco."

The pair flew off, leaving me smirking at the overheard conversation.

"The people of this town," muttered Jace.

"So, who's this Dr. Fink?" I asked.

"Oh, he's my mom's dad . . . in a sense. She was created, not born, and Fink was the one who made her. She was actually made _for_ him, but she didn't really like him, so he kinda made her his servant."

"Yikes," I said, suddenly dreading meeting the doctor.

"Yea, well, he's gotten better," said Jace. "He made another woman for himself, and this one worked out more like he planned. Her name is Jewel, and she's calmed him down a bit."

"Okay, good," I said. "I don't want to be his second slave."

"You wouldn't," he said. "You'd be his third. He made this little hunchbacked dude, Igor, before he made my mom. Igor used to be a mistreated slave, also, but Jewel's helped him out, and now he's more like a pet dog or something. He's not very bright, but he's really enthusiastic and eager to please."

"Aw, he sounds really cute," I said.

"Well, he's kinda ugly, but—"

"EEEEEH-MAAAAA-LEEEEE!"

We turned to see Shock racing towards us at a speed of one thousand miles per hour, Lock and Barrel desperately trying to catch up. Her black hair was flying behind her, but her hat managed to stay on without her holding it. The Boogie Boys' masks were all held in their hands.

"Jesus Christ, can't we go _anywhere_ without running into these three?" I muttered.

"Tell me about it," Jace said. "But they hate the doctor, so you'll be safe there."

"OMG!" Shock shouted. "Hi! Where are you going? Do you want to see a vat full of melted bugs? Because we're thinking of cleaning it out and if you want to see it you have to come over right now."

"I'm good, thanks," I said. "Where's the tub?"

"Oh, it's charging," said Barrel, who had caught up. He and Lock were breathing heavily.

"Charging?" I said.

"Yea, why?" Barrel looked confused.

"Never mind," I said, shaking my head.

"So, where'er you taking her?" asked Lock.

"I'm just showing her around town," said Jace.

"Can we come?" Shock said.

"If you want. We're going to Dr. Finkelstein's lab next, and we'll probably stay there for a little bit."

The trio suddenly paled.

"Um, actually—" said Lock.

"We have to do—" said Shock.

"This really important thing—" said Barrel.

"Very important," said Lock.

"Super important," said Shock.

"Unbelievably important," said Barrel.

"So we—" said Lock.

"Should probably—" said Shock.

"Get going!" finished Barrel. The trio put their masks back on and scurried away.

"Wow," I said. "You weren't kidding when you said that they didn't like the doctor."

Jace laughed.

The rest of the walk to Dr. Finkelstein's was spent in a comfortable silence, me feeling the already-familiar rhythm of Jace's strides as we went. In the not-so-far-away distance I saw a strange building on a hill. It was shaped like a giant ball resting on a pedestal, and was made out of stone and metal. Jace slipped between some houses ("A shortcut," he said) and walked up the steep path to the front door. He set me down before knocking.

The door was opened by an ugly hunchbacked creature.

"Hello, Igor," said Jace.

"Hello, Master Jace," Igor croaked. He looked at me curiously, but didn't ask any questions.

"Jace?" called a nasally female voice.

"Yes, Aunt Jewel," Jace replied.

"Well hello!" Jewel replied, coming to the doorway. She was tall, with a huge skull and a duckbill-like mouth that was covered with lipstick. Her forehead had a seam running across it, held together by bolts. She had blonde hair, super long eyelashes, and stitches like Sally. Jewel, however, was not nearly as pretty as Sally was.

"Good job getting the door, Igor," she said. "Here's a biscuit."

"Aunt Jewel," said Jace. "Could you keep the human here until things calm down?"

"Well, I'll have to ask Fink," said Jewel.

"Me do it!" said Igor excitedly. He rushed away to go tell his master.

Jewel smiled affectionately in his direction. "Come in, come in," she said to us.

The inside of the house was made of grey stone, and a ramp led up the wall, going round and round until it reached some end. There were couches, rugs, and tables set around the floor, making the dark room seem les boring. Jewel lead us to one and sat us down. She began to absent mindedly picking at her seams.

"So, Aunt Jewel, how have things been around here?" said Jace after an awkward silence.

"Good, good," Jewel replied. "Fink's been working on a new invention."

"When is he not?" Jace laughed.

"What does it do?" I asked.

Jewel looked at me strangely, as though she was surprised that I would and could talk. "He says that, if he gets it to work (which he will, he always does), the machine will create a fear aura that affects monsters as well as humans. The only one who can do that is Jack, of course, but Fink wants to make the option available to everyone."

"Jewel!" called a voice from upstairs. "Jewel! Where are you my precious Jewel?"

"Down here, Fink," Jewel said. "Jace is here with the human that everyone's been babbling about."

"The town will babble about anything," said the doctor. "It could be anything from the demise of Oogie to Undersea Gal finding another body part in the lake, which happens almost every month."

As he finished speaking, the doctor himself came into view, Igor following close behind. Dr. Fink was sitting on an old-looking motorized wheelchair, which got stuck as he wheeled into the room. His head was similar to Jewel's, with the strangely shaped mouth and bolts visible around the seam on his bald head. He had a thin, frail body and an overall wizened appearance. He glared at me through black goggles as he continued to speak.

"But I can understand why they would babble about this. I am very fond of our Pumpkin King, I truly am, but this is ridiculous! Bringing a human to our town! I don't believe all the mumbo-jumbo that I've heard about her father. She's just a girl who needs to be sent back home."

"Uncle Finkelstein—" Jace started to say.

"I'm not done, boy!" snapped Dr. Fink. "So, as I was saying, if you think for a second that I'm going to let her stay here and mess up my serious inventing, you are dead wrong. That girl means trouble, and I want nothing more than to have her out of here as soon as possible."

"Doctor," I said. Obviously not expecting me to speak, the doctor was at a loss of words for a moment. I took advantage of his shocked situation and spoke as quickly as I could. "I am very sorry to have caused any inconvenience to you or to anyone else in this town. It was not my fault, but I still have disrupted things here. Still, I do not want to be murdered in my sleep or constantly pestered by the people of this town, so if you could just let me stay here until things calm down, I promise that I will be as little of a bother to you as I can. I will stay out of your way. Or, if you'd like, I could help you with anything around the house . . . er, lab. Just until I can go back home, then I'll be out of your hair forever."

Everyone was staring at me in . . . Surprise? Confusion? Shock? (Ugh, I was never going to be able to hear that word without thinking of that witch). Whatever the reason, it was freaking me out. I shuffled awkwardly on the couch

Jace was the first to realize my discomfort. "Please, Uncle Finkelstein?" he said. "It'll only be a few weeks. It would mean a lot to my family."

"What do you think, Jewel?" the doctor asked, turning to her.

"I think we should. It's only for a little while, after all."

"Oh, all right," grumbled the doctor.

I grinned. "Thank you, Dr. Finkelstein."

"Yea, yea," he answered. "Igor, go show our guest to her room."

"Yes, master," the hunchback replied. He gestured to me. "Come."

I got up and followed him up a ramp that circled up higher and higher until my legs started to ache. It wasn't until we reached a thick metal door that I realized that Jace was behind me.

"Jesus Christ," I breathed. "You scared me. Don't sneak up on me like that."

He grinned. "But Emily, the entire reason for my existence is to scare people. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't."

I glared at him.

"Besides, I didn't sneak up on you on purpose," he said.

"Human," croaked Igor. I realized that he had already opened the door and was waiting for me to enter.

"Oh, sorry, Igor," said, stepping through the doorway.

Igor held his hand out expectantly. "Biscuit?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, I don't have any on me."

Igor glared at me before stomping back to the first floor.

"Aw, you made him mad," said Jace.

I rolled my eyes. "I'll give him two biscuits next time to make up for it."

The room I would be staying in was bare, with a bed and an empty wardrobe being the only furniture. There was, however, a window with a beautiful view of the town. There wasn't glass on the window, just bars crisscrossing across a giant hole.

"Nice place you've got here," Jace said.

"Your sarcasm is not appreciated."

Jace grinned. "If you don't want to stay here, you don't have to. We could find you a better place."

"I wouldn't want to put you guys through the trouble. Besides, I like the doctor."

"Why?"

"He didn't call me 'it'."

Jace laughed.

"Why are you still here, anyway?" I asked.

"Well, that's not very nice."

"I didn't mean to be rude, it's just that you weren't the warmest to me at first, and now here you are, finding me a place to stay, making sure I get there safely, and then keeping me company. Not to mention that you've stopped calling me 'it'."

"That really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"More than you can imagine."

"Well, let's see," said Jace, scratching his skull. "See, we're taught to scare humans, and not to interact with them in any other way. I haven't really been in the world long enough to understand much about humans, just that the smaller ones are easier to scare, and the ones who are clutching a bottle and don't look too steady on their feet normally forget what had happened by the next day. So, humans have always seemed like . . . animals, to me. They have feelings, but they don't have sophisticated thoughts. But then you came along, and you aren't afraid of any of this, and you have a hatred of being called 'it' and a strange reluctance to go back . . . plus you saved Cynth and me from a year of grounding . . . it's just made me rethink humans."

"How do you know that I don't want to go home?"

"It's pretty obvious. You flinch every time someone says something about how you'll be leaving in a few weeks."

"Oops."

"And now, here you are, just talking to a skeleton, who isn't even _alive_, like it's the most normal thing in the world. I mean, it's normal for everyone here to do that, but a human? Seriously, is this normal for you guys?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I'm just defective."

"I prefer to think of it as _different_."

I smiled. "_Very_ different."

"There's nothing wrong with that. You're just not the stereotypical eighteen-year-old human girl. And there's nothing I hate more than stereotypes."

"Join the club," I said, looking out the window. I could see Sally talking to a tree with five hanged skeletons near the fountain, Jack talking to a group of ghosts by the town hall, and the Boogie Boy's kicking a fat little dead boy like a soccer ball down the streets.

"I should probably go stop that," said Jace, pointing to the soccer game. "They'll probably 'accidentally' kick him into the lake. Last time that happened, it took a month for Undersea Gal to find him."

"Yea, you should probably get going," I agreed. "I'll see you later."

"Bye," he said, backing out of the door.

"Bye," I answered, but he was already gone.

* * *

**AN:** Hi, all. Sorry for yet another disappearance. I'm back now, and already started on Chapter 6.

I got _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ movie! I watched it with my family a few nights ago. I was the only one who had seen it before, but now they all love it (can't say I'm too surprised)!

School's started, so homework will get in the way of updates (in fact, it's mostly the reason why this one took so long). I'll try my best to get them up fast.

Bye!


	7. 6 Boredom

When I woke up the next morning, stiff from the hard mattress I had slept on but well rested from a dreamless sleep, it suddenly dawned on me that I had only been in Halloween Town for less than two days.

And I already never wanted to leave. I really _was_ defective.

The sun slanted through the window, probably being the cause of my awakening. The beam was aimed directly on my face, after all.

In movies, the pretty girls always wake up this way, listening to the birds chirp as they get up with their still-perfect-even-after-sleeping hair, singing as they go. In real life, however, this is one of the most god-awful ways of being woken up, and the little birdies chirping are so _unbelievably_ annoying, and of course one's hair is an unmanageable knot after a night of sleep, and if there's any singing, there isn't any convenient background music except for the running water of the shower. Seriously, Hollywood, you need to get a grip on reality.

At least in Halloween Town the little birdies chirping weren't actually little birdies chirping. More like fat, ugly crows cawing away. The town was really growing on me.

I was about to get up when I heard a knock on the metal door. "Human," came the sound of Igor's voice. "Breakfast. Come."

I got up and followed him downstairs. He obviously hadn't gotten over my refusal to give him a biscuit, and he kept shooting me evil glares on the way to breakfast.

"Where is that girl?" I heard the doctor shout as we neared the dining room. "I'm hungry! The food is getting cold! What's taking Igor so long? The girl is probably still asleep!"

"Good morning, doctor," I said as I entered the room. He was sitting at the head of the table, Jewel at his right and an empty seat to his left. I sat down there and picked up my fork, but stopped when I saw my breakfast.

"So, how did you sleep?" said Jewel politely. "And I don't think we learned your name yesterday."

"Um, Emily, and I slept good," I said, trying to decide if the spider pancakes, fried bat wings, and eyeball cereal were edible. At least the drink was pumpkin juice and not a blood shake or something.

I heard strange sounds coming from the doctor, and I turned to see him gobbling up the food as fast as he could, some of it dribbling onto his white lab coat. Summoning my courage, I picked up one of the bat wings and bit into it. Surprisingly, it tasted like really, really good bacon. I picked up my knife and cut a small piece of the pancakes. There was a crunch as the knife cut through the spiders, but I tried to ignore it as I popped it into my mouth. This also tasted very good. It was strangely crunchy, not like any kind of pancakes I'd ever had before, but still delicious.

The eyeball cereal, however, was pushing my limits of bravery.

"Uh, are these, like, candy eyeballs or something?" I asked, pointing at the cereal.

"Of course not!" Jewel answered, Dr. Fink still gobbling down his meal. "Those are fish, cow, bird, and human eyes. No phonies for us."

I covered my hand with my mouth and tried not to be sick.

Thankfully, a knock came from the front door, interrupting breakfast and giving me time to dump it into Igor's dog bowl, which was right next to my chair.

"Me get it!" said Igor. He rushed downstairs, but I head the door open before he reached the bottom.

"Doctor Finkelstein!" came Jack's voice.

"Jack, my boy!" said the doctor, looking up from his meal. A piece of bat wing was stuck to his face. "Come up, we're eating breakfast."

"Hello, doctor, Emily, Jewel, and Igor," said Jack. He had a black bag that was full of things I couldn't see.

"What brings you here, Jack?" asked Jewel.

"Oh, I just remembered this morning about how humans aren't as durable as we dead are," he answered. "So I brought over some things she might need." He set the bag down on the table, listing objects as he pulled them out. "We've got some more clothes that don't fit Cynthia anymore, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, and human food. I know that some of our food she technically could eat, but I just brought food over just in case."

"Everything else is great, thanks," I said. "But I ate all my breakfast."

Jack raised his eyebrow . . . don't ask me how the skeleton managed to do it, he just did. "Even the eyeball cereal?" he asked, pointing to my mostly empty bowl. There were still a few eyeballs and bits of cereal stick to the bottom.

I grinned sheepishly. "Okay, maybe not that, but everything else was delicious."

"Where did your cereal go, then?" asked Jewel.

"Umm . . ." I searched for a response.

"Yummy cereal!" said Igor excitedly as he saw what had been dumped into his bowl a few minutes before. "Thank you, human!"

Dr. Finkelstein glared at me.

"Oops," I said.

"Well, no matter," said Jack. "Keep the food just in case they cook something really strange for dinner. Most of it is nonperishable, by the way. We might like rotten fruits, but I know humans don't."

"Thanks," I said, putting everything back into the bag.

"My pleasure," said Jack. He waited until I picked up my bag and left to return to my room before speaking again. "Doctor Finkelstein, my son has told me about an invention you are working on."

Something about his voice made me stop and listen.

"Yes?" Dr. Fink replied.

"Doctor, I don't think that it's a good idea."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I just think that having a two-way fear aura is something that should be given to anyone."

"It sounds to me like you don't want to share your power."

"I did not choose to have such power and responsibility. It is difficult to wield, and if someone who isn't worthy can easily get their hands on it, then the whole town will be in grave peril."

"How so?"

"What would happen if Oogie Boogie was still around?"

"I would never give something so dangerous to that vile creature."

"What would stop him from just taking it from you?"

"I . . . nothing."

"Exactly. So, please, think about what you're doing."

"Of course, Jack."

"Thank you. Now, I have to get going. The whole human fiasco has gotten me behind on our holiday plans!"

"Of course, of course. Goodbye, Jack!"

"Goodbye, doctor!"

I waited until I heard the front door open and close before creeping upstairs to put away my new belongings.

I came downstairs ten minutes later, my breath smelling fresh and my dyed red hair feeling silky smooth. I had changed out of my clothes (I had still been wearing the black nightgown that Sally had lent me two nights ago) and into black jeans and a t-shirt that had "Pumpkin Princess" written on it in a fancy script. I had no idea who or what the Pumpkin Princess was, but the design was cool.

Igor smiled at me as he scurried past, carrying blueprints and tools in his arms. It seemed that giving him my cereal had put me in his good graces.

"Good, Igor, have a biscuit," I heard the doctor say. Following the sound of his voice, I turned out of the hallway and peered into the nearest room.

The doctor was sitting at a giant table, furiously working on something I couldn't see. To his right was a giant metal examination table with straps to hold a person down. To his left was a huge sort of magnifying glass where a bug was kept, squirming in midair. All around were tables piled with papers, beakers, and other lab equipment.

"I see you there, girl," said the doctor without turning around.

"Sorry," I said, stepping into the room. "Cool lab you've got here."

Dr. Fink spun around, or, at least, he tried to. The wheelchair prevented him from doing any sudden movement. "Cool? _Cool?_ This laboratory is home to the most highly advanced technology in all of both the human and the Halloween world! It far surpasses the mere 'cool'! It is the most sophisticated lab in the world!"

I raised my hands as though he were pointing a gun at me (he was actually pointing a strange little metal object at me, but I had no idea what it did, so I wasn't going to take any chances). "Sorry, sorry," I said.

The doctor sniffed. "Now, go away, girl. I have work to do."

I ran out of there as fast as I could.

"Oh, hello, Emily," said Jewel as I rounded a corner into what I guessed was the kitchen. She looked at my new clothes and laughed. "Of course Jack would give you that."

I looked down at my Pumpkin Princess shirt. "Why?"

Jewel raised her eyebrows. "He didn't tell you?"

"He didn't say what?" I demanded, getting nervous.

Jewel shook her head. "He must not have wanted you to be any more scared of him than you had to be."

"What are you not telling me?!" I shouted.

"Jack Skellington is our town's Pumpkin King."

"Your _what_?"

"Pumpkin King. The king of our town. The scariest creature that ever was. The overall ruler of all things Halloween."

"Oh, wow, so I had a sleepover at the King's mansion?"

"Yup," Jewel answered, nodding.

"So, that means Sally is the Queen, Cynthia is the Princess, —" (I looked down at my shirt) "—and Jace is the Prince?"

"Yup," Jewel said again.

"Is that why Jack could sense other fear auras and why he can also affect monsters with his?"

"Yup."

"Oh, wow."

"I didn't tell you this, though," Jewel said. "You found out on your own."

"Um, okay."

Jewel patted my cheek. "Good girl."

The day passed slowly, one hour dragging into the next. I helped Jewel cook lunch (a strange dead-vegetable stir-fry thing), got biscuits to feed Igor with in the future, tried not to go near the doctor's lab, figured out how many different outfits I could make out of the clothes Jack had brought me, tried to read some of the doctor's books (they were all science textbooks, so I gave up on that fast), and overall just tried to find something fun to do. By nighttime, I was hoping that I would at least have an interesting dream to keep me busy.

No such luck. Another dreamless sleep flew by, followed by another dull morning. Seemed like staying in Halloween town wasn't going to be as much fun as I'd hoped.

Even so, I still didn't want to leave.

Around noon I snapped. I found Jewel in the kitchen, making some rat stew thing, and told her I was going out.

She nearly choked on the soup she had been tasting.

"But, honey, you can't go out alone! Someone will try to hurt you!"

I groaned. "Do you guys have phones here?"

"Have what here?"

"I thought so," I muttered.

"I'm sorry, Emily, but it's just too dangerous."

"Yea, yea," I said, going up to my room.

_Knock knock knock._

"Coming!" Jewel called. She set down her ladle and rushed downstairs to answer the door. I listened from the top of the ramp.

"Hi, Aunt Jewel!" said a familiar voice.

"Cynthia!" cried Jewel. "Hello! Come in, come in."

"Sorry, but I don't have time," Cynthia replied. "Have you seen Zero anywhere?"

"Zero?" asked Jewel. "No, I'm afraid not."

"Damn it," Cynthia muttered. "Well, thanks, anyway."

"Wait!" I cried, rushing down.

"Hey, Emily," Cynthia called up to me, waving. "I have to go find our dog, he's run off, so I can't stay."

"Can I go with you?"

"Sure."

"Hold on a minute!" Jewel cried. "The human is not to leave the house!"

"But I'll be with Cynthia," I said.

"And Jace and Lock and Shock and Barrel," Cynthia added. "And my parents."

"Please?" I begged.

Jewel sighed. "Fine."

"Thanks!" I said, rushing out the door before she could change her mind.

* * *

**AN:** Hallo! Back with another chapter! I got _super_ behind on schoolwork (already!) and am failing one class, barely passing another, and then all my other classes are in the A- to A+ range. I had planned to make this chapter longer, but I felt like I needed to update, so, here ya go! So Chapter 7 will include the second part of this chapter and then the rest of what I had planned for Chapter 7. I would say it'll be a long chapter, but I don't want to make any promises, because they'll end up being broken.

Please R&R! Every little bit helps my writing get better!


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